Is Redis a better option for SignalR scale out over SQL Server, and do each support failover?

Question

In David Fowler's blog, SQL Server has been added to the list of scale out providers for service bus.

I am in the process of implementing Redis on our Windows servers. Based on what I know about Redis, I'm guessing it will be significantly faster than using SQL Server - is that a fair assumption?

If so, how does the Windows version of Redis implement fail-over?

Answer 1

• Redis is ~x200 faster than SQL, mainly because it's in-memory and the protocol is designed for speed.
• If that helps, Redis Cloud is now offered on Windows Azure, and HA is a built-in capability of the service.

Disclosure - I'm the Co-Founder & CTO of Garantia Data, the company behind the Redis Cloud service.

Answer 2

Based on what I know about Redis, I'm guessing it will be significantly faster than using SQL Server - is that a fair assumption?

It will be faster than SQL Server since it's optimized for in-memory based operations, however its speed isn't the only advantage. Support of advanced data structures offers a great deal of flexibility when dealing with various scenarios.

If so, how does the Windows version of Redis implement fail-over?

There is a link in download section to unofficial windows based port of redis which however isn't meant to be used for production purpose. Official version of redis supports replication and sentinel has automatic failover, but it's hard to say what's the state of these features in windows port. In general I wouldn't recommend to use redis on windows machine but rather use virtual machine with linux distro and run it there.